[Socrates] Bernstein Mass - Performances and Symposium

[Emily John]

Bernstein’s Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers comes to QC

The Aaron Copland School of Music is presenting a very unique performance.
This amazing piece touches on many issues - first premiered in 1971 at the Kennedy Center, conducted by Maurice Peress.
Maestro Peress, our QC Orchestra conductor, is bringing this work to life again in a fully staged version featuring QC orchestra, choir, women’s choir, opera studio…

Please consider attending, inviting others, and sharing this with your students.

“Mass proves to be greater than the sum of its parts.  Mass calls for the literal massing together of a universe of music and musicians in the cause of peace.  Its sheer size is mesmerizing.”  - Maurice Peress (From Dvorak to Duke Ellington, p. 150).

Presented by the Aaron Copland School of Music
Saturday, November 1, 2014 at 8:00 PM and
Sunday, November 2, 2014 at 3:00 PM
Colden Auditorium
Tickets: $15 – $25
http://kupferbergcenter.showare.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=20

Leonard Bernstein’s Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers is the composer’s most ambitious work. Commissioned to create a stage production to inaugurate the opera house at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Bernstein turned to the Roman Catholic mass as a structure to investigate issues of faith and doubt, and of the political and social upheavals of the era of the late ’60s and early ’70s.
 
MASS is an enormous piece. It calls for a large pit orchestra, two choruses plus a boy’s choir, a Broadway-sized cast (with ballet company), marching band and a rock band. It may seem ironic that such multitudes are marshaled for a work that celebrates a man’s “Simple Song”: his love and faith in God. But in the end, that simplicity is shown to be all the more powerful because of it.




A Leonard Bernstein Mass Symposium
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/leonard-bernsteins-mass-symposium-tickets-13069871337
Tuesday Oct 21st, 
Macaulay Honors College (Cabaret Space)
35 W 67th St 
New York, NY 10023

  
The Aaron Copland School of Music and the Kupferberg Center for the Arts will present a fully staged performance of Leonard Bernstein "Mass" on Nov. 1 and 2 at Colden Auditorium in Queens College. Leading up to the performance, a panel of experts will discuss the composer, the work, the premiere, and the legacy of Bernstein's most ambitious and once controversial composition.
 
Participants:
 
Maurice Peress,  conductor of the 1971 premiere and the current production.
Gordon Davidson,  stage director of the 1971 premiere.
Jamie Bernstein, daughter of the composer and a composer and writer herself.
Michael Hume, chorus member at the premiere, and later performed the role of Celebrant.
Lorca Peress, stage director for the current production.